Come hear the euphonious sounds of the tubas and euphoniums. It's not about the oompah-pah any more! The tuba and euphonium studio will play the music of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and many others starting Sunday, Octuba 12 at 3 p.m. in the Performance Center at Mason Hall.

Join the celebration of our instruments and hear music in a whole new way. All concerts are free and open to the public. The Octubafest Concert Series will hold all of its concerts on the JSU campus at Mason Hall in the Performance Center located on the top floor.

Our Guest Artist this year is Oystein Baadsvik, a world renowned tuba artist musician.
He will perform on Wednesday, Octuba 15, 2008 at 7:00 p.m. in the Performance Center at Mason Hall.

Oystein Baadsvik is the only tuba virtuoso to have carved out a career exclusively as a soloist, rather than becoming a member of an orchestra or accepting a teaching post. His multi-faceted musical career as a soloist, chamber musician, lecturer and recording artist has taken him all over the world. The unique virtuosity and musicality Mr. Baadsvik's brings to the tuba has established him as the exemplar of the instrument.

He studied under the celebrated tuba player Harvey Phillips, Distinguished Professor meritus, Department of Music, Indiana University and with the legendary Arnold Jacobs, who had a forty-year career and position of Principal Tuba with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Oystein Baadsvik's international career began in 1991 when he was awarded two prizes at the prestigious Concours International d'Exécution Musicale in Geneva

His international engagements include performances with orchestras such as the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, the Taipei National Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Philharmonic, and the Orchestra Victoria of Melbourne. Baadsvik has performed in some of the most famous venues in the world and 2006 made his New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall.

He works constantly to expand the musical aspects of the tuba and has premiered some forty solo works by composers from the USA, Russia, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland. In this ongoing process he has developed new tuba-playing techniques that have been used in a number of more recent works for the instrument.

Baadsvik is an active recording artist whose CDs receive unstinting praise. During the last two years he reached a major breakthrough in Japan, where his CDs ranked second in sales recordings for all wind instruments. In their review of "Tuba Works," American Record Guide said, "This spectacular recording establishes Baadsvik as one of the best solo tubists in the world." In praise of "Tuba Carnival," The Daily Telegraph, U.K said, "...his capacity for lyricism in a recording that emancipates the tuba from its Cinderella role with ear-catching panache. Baadsvik shows that anything a violin can do, a tuba can do too."